| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: this?--possibly to the gallows. Morris was trying to shave when
this idea struck him, and he laid the razor down. Here (in
Michael's words) was the total disappearance of a valuable uncle;
here was a time of inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew
who had been in bad blood with the old man any time these seven
years; what a chance for a judicial blunder! 'But no,' thought
Morris, 'they cannot, they dare not, make it murder. Not that.
But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man, I don't see any
other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don't seem
somehow to have committed. And yet I'm a perfectly respectable
man, and wished nothing but my due. Law is a pretty business.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: this topic on the abrupt discovery that the sun was getting down out of
the sky, and they asked each other where they were and what they should
do. They pulled up at some cross-roads and debated this with growing
uneasiness. Behind them lay the way to Cambridge, - not very clear, to
be sure; but you could always go where you had come from, Billy seemed
to think. He asked, "How about Cambridge and a little Oscar to finish
off with?" Bertie frowned. This would be failure. Was Billy willing
to go back and face John the successful?
"It would only cost me five dollars," said Billy.
"Ten," Bertie corrected. He recalled to Billy the matter about the
landlady's hair.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: more pleasure and diversion too.
It is true, the wives of the three were very handy and cleanly
within doors; and having learned the English ways of dressing, and
cooking from one of the other Englishmen, who, as I said, was a
cook's mate on board the ship, they dressed their husbands'
victuals very nicely and well; whereas the others could not be
brought to understand it; but then the husband, who, as I say, had
been cook's mate, did it himself. But as for the husbands of the
three wives, they loitered about, fetched turtles' eggs, and caught
fish and birds: in a word, anything but labour; and they fared
accordingly. The diligent lived well and comfortably, and the
Robinson Crusoe |
